White
by SeraSearaSpin
Summary: In the end, Nine wasn't the one that pulled the last trigger.


***contains spoilers from the last episode, be warned***

**Welp, I watched the last episode of ZnT. *takes heart and throws it out the window* I mean, everyone suspected that something terrible was going to happen, and it did, and it was horrible. But at least there's closure, and they got the chance to be happy. UNLIKE TOKYO GHOUL.**

**I wrote Twelve's synesthesia the way mine works. Other people may perceive it differently. Don't take my words as a guideline for synesthesia.**

**Most of the dialogue in the last section does not belong to me. I paraphrased it some, but it's still not mine. ****Mandatory disclaimer: Zankyou no Terror does not belong to me, though if it did, it wouldn't have been as good.**

**Review, if it pleases you.**

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><p>They'd been waiting for his arrival almost unconsciously. The festivities of the day were a prelude to the sunset drama. But Lisa didn't know that, and in their conscious minds, they didn't, either. It was a sort of "We did it! Let's celebrate!" mindset, and none of them were about to sulk away.<p>

Watching Nine, bumping a ball on his foot in the obviously very intense game of hacky-sack, Lisa was almost in shock. _Where's the cold, calculating young man I'd met earlier? This new Nine could almost be a new person. It's as if, with the detonation of the bomb, the exterior he'd had to build was burned away. _

Twelve had mentioned the institution to her briefly, while they sat in the park together. _It was a place where we knew no one. We'd never been needed before. _Such a place sounded like hell, to be honest. It was a miracle that Twelve had come out of it with his charming personality intact. _But years must've passed between the start of their terrorism and their escape. All that time, was Nine as cold as this...?_

Smiling, Nine passed the ball to Twelve, who bounced it first off his foot and then his knee. _Smiling,_ Twelve thought, in a sort of abstract wonder. _He's smiling, not maliciously, not out of a desire to fight, but because he's happy. Has he ever been happy? __(What did he mean, with "We're running out of time?) _

_He's happy now,_ he refuted, and feeling ready to laugh with the joy of simply _existing,_ he kicked the ball to Lisa, who reached for it inadequately, managed to miss with every stroke, and ended up with the sphere in her face. "Ow!" she said, a simple exclamation of surprise, and went after the ball, where it bounced cheerfully down the hill.

"Kick it here!" crowed Twelve, waving his arms, but further behind him, Nine also stretched out a hand. Looking back and forth between the two, she made her decision, dropped the ball, kicked it - and it went soaring backwards over her head, to her utter surprise. To the mingled, good-natured laughter of the two terrorists (_laughter which even two weeks ago she would've mistook as malevolent_), she went after it again.

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><p>Nine'd brought a box with him before he left the city for good. In it, perfectly preserved, was an antiquated old phone, and he unwound a pair of earphones, switched it on, and sat on a post, sunning himself. Presently, Lisa appeared, curious. "What're you listening to?" Her gaze was inquisitive and a little wary, expecting the old Nine to appear, coldness forming in those currently warm brown eyes, for his voice to roughen with irritation: "None of your business."<p>

And when he smiled, told her the name of the Icelandic band, she still felt that little spurt of surprise. When he turned and offered her the other earbud, she had taken it with trepidation, still a little shy around the new character that had taken over so suddenly. _What kind of music does he listen to? _And a moment later, she found out. It was pleasant, it was wild, it was just controlled enough, and it was so perfectly _Nine_ that it took her breath away. They stood together in the sunshine, bonded by mutual enjoyment.

A moment later, a crystal clear arc of water spattered over the both of them, offered up by the ancient hose Twelve had found somewhere. They both jerked under the spray, and smiled, and Twelve saw their smiles (_both of them, happy, as friends, would you have believed that yesterday?)_ and laughed.

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><p>The sun was just staining the sky with rich bands of pink and gold, though purplish clouds marred the beauty here and there. They sat bunched together against the slight chill, Lisa with both earbuds in now, losing herself in the music. Twelve was next to her (<em>their fingers just brushing at the tips, the warmth it settled in him foreign but completely pleasant), <em>and Nine was on the other side of him.

Nine was pulling at the collar of his shirt, as if he were hot, and Twelve turned to look at him curiously and saw dark beads of sweat at his temple, and the half-grimace that was settled on his features. His friend looked pale, so pale - _What's wrong? _It was on the tip of his tongue when Nine opened his eyes and rose. Twelve followed his gaze and came to his feet as well, and the sensation of movement behind her caused Lisa to turn as well. The earbuds came out, now playing a symphony for no one.

Shibazaki was coming up the drive, striding purposefully towards them.

(_You've been expecting him, haven't you?_)

The two terrorists stood shoulder to shoulder in front of him, and Lisa peered fearfully around them from behind. The intruder came to a stop ten feet away.

"It took me quite a while to get here." The detective spoke, shattering the pre-twilight stillness, and the sort of light camaraderie was lost. Behind him, that old ferris wheel glistened black against the sky. The terrorists were silent. Lisa could see Nine's walls going up.

Shibazaki looked around. The institution was in a state of disrepair, dilapidated buildings and plant life overgrowing much of the campus, and he remarked, "This is what you wanted the world to see, correct? The media wants to know, for sure; 'Who are Sphinx, and where did they come from?' And that's here, isn't it?"

Lisa drew closer, almost protectively, to the boys she'd grown so fond of, and the detective took a breath. "If you're caught, everything will come to light. But that was your goal." He looked up. "You planned to be caught from the start."

"Yes," said Twelve suddenly, not a bit ashamed; "but there was another thing."

"We needed someone to catch us," Nine went on. Behind him, Lisa drew in a sudden, fearful breath. _After this, will I have to go back home? _The dark-haired terrorist continued. "You were Oedipus."

Shibazaki made a sound, an approving grunt, perhaps - and then he reached to his hip, resurfaced with a gun, and pointed it at them, though he felt more like he was going through the motions then anything else. Their goal completed, they would go quietly. "Sphinx, you're under arrest."

And despite what he'd just thought to himself, wasn't there the littlest bit of satisfaction? _I've finally caught you, the elusive Sphinx. __One in the eye for those who pulled me off this case._

Twelve jerked his head at Lisa. "She's only a hostage," he said brusquely, and the girl wilted a little. _Only? Just a hostage...but _

(_You've become an accomplice. You're one of us now.)_

_I thought I'd become more than that. I...I thought we were friends._

"Please protect her," was the next sentence out of his mouth, and Lisa looked down, a bit ashamed of her relapse into negativity, but also a little relieved. _Would they really give you up, just because you failed to kick a ball? _Twelve looked at her out of the corner of his eye, bent his lips into the tiniest smile. _You're all right, Lisa. _

And there was a whirring of aircraft overhead. "What?" Shibazaki pulled his arm back, the gun now safely aiming at the deepening sky. Purple clouds scabbed over the vibrant sunset and the bluer tones of night, only to be scattered by helicopter blades. Two large, ominous silhouettes darkened the sky. _I thought all Japanese aircraft had been grounded, _he rationalized to himself. _Surely this is another of Sphinx's tricks- _But the looks of surprise on their faces assured him that _no, it's not. _

His next thought was of the Americans. _Only they possessed anti-EMP technology. Then why-?_

Nine gritted his teeth against the wind, even as it rifled through his hair and brought stinging particles of sand to his skin. _The Americans. Five's people, and they drove her to madness. Are they here for Twelve and I? _As if hearing his name in his thoughts, Twelve turned to him, confusion wrinkling his face. "Nine, do you know?" _This wasn't supposed to happen._

The helicopters looped, did a figure eight, slowed their momentum, came ever lower, and now swirls of dust and dirt were starting to ripple away from it. They saw that one side was bristling with the barrels of guns.

In the middle of the miniature sandstorm, Nine raised his hand, the steel glare on his face burning defiantly into the sky. His arm twisted a little, buffeted back and forth, and to others, that might've been completely natural. The wind from the helicopters was strong; of course it was all right to move a little. But Twelve knew his friend, knew Nine had the strength to hold his arm straight, and worried.

Within Nine's hand was a small device, about the size of a cellphone, with a stubby antenna to boot. Shibazaki immediately recognized it and gasped softly. The sound of his gasp was drowned by the helicopter's blades, though Twelve briefly saw it in a sort of wavering dark green color.

"This is a detonator," Nine said. His voice was loud, firm with anger, a little ragged (_we're running out of time_), and those in the helicopters heard. "Our atomic bomb is gone, but there are more." The men, set in strong ranks in their helicopter, shifted uneasily.

"The bomb this will detonate is in a nuclear power plant!" His voice was raised, forceful, sending slate-blue shapes from his mouth to dash to splinters on the ground, undisturbed by wind and dust. The imperial gray of the helicopter sound sliced all around, covering the translucent yellow sparks of Lisa's gasp.

"If the US forces don't withdraw at once, I'll set off the bomb." There were a few tiny holes in the color of Nine's voice, just permeable enough to be worrying, and tiny static ribbons of voices were shredded by gray, and the helicopters twisted indecisively in the air, one in front, and one behind.

A consensus seemed to have been come to. The aircraft in front of the group pulled up slightly, and as hope (_von_) started filling the air again, there was a horrible sound, a single thunderclap that seemed to stretch for eternity.

(_the sound was black. no sound had ever been black before, and in the space of a millisecond, Twelve had time to wonder: if the sound was made in violence, would it become black? or is it-)_

Three faces reacted to the sound; the fourth was full of surprise and pain.

A ribbon of blood followed the bullet out of Twelve's body, and the brown eyes looked skyward, past the clouds to the oncoming night. The force of the bullet sent him sprawling, the front of his shirt billowing like a sail, the shock frozen forever onto his impish features, the smile like the sun locked into an almost wistful expression of confusion; he fell, the blood on his shirt spread like a flower blooming (_petals like feathers falling up)_, and in falling

(_ah, it seems i was right; the sound heralding the end of my life is indeed black. how curious..._)

he was ungraceful, the nearly catlike agility that was so characteristic of him unbalanced in death.

_Death. _

And the solemn, laughing gray aircraft waited.

Lisa's face was blank, shock wiped her smooth (_the warmth of his fingertips against her own, a promise that later, perhaps-), _pale yellow voice released in the smallest of exhales. And she couldn't move. Not to mourn the boy that'd been her salvation, or to offer sparse comfort to the boy that'd been his companion. Ice was in her veins, rooting her to the spot.

Nine took several stiff steps forwards, fell clumsily to his knees, trembling all over. His hands rose, fell, reached towards Twelve and retreated, unwilling to touch him, unwilling to confirm what his disbelieving eyes told him. _I gambled too much, the stakes were too high, and I have lost it all. _

Breathing was an effort; soon the same malady that had overtaken Five would reach him, as well, and he'd planned on this being their happy day so he could be remembered in a positive light after his death. Never in all his wildest nightmares had he ever dreamed that his constant companion would have his life ended before his sickness was played out. _Never._ In his speculations, plans, even in the darkest of moments when Twelve had left him for Lisa (_the bitter, biting tang of jealousy had choked his throat), _this death, this horrible ending, had never even entered his mind.

(_My mistake._)

The shaking that had overtaken him stilled; he could almost feel Lisa thinking _Nine's drowning his emotions again, wearing his old shell, because to show emotion here would be weakness. Weakness is not ever tolerated. _The fragile control he'd been trying to impose was wavering, shattering, and the blood in ever-widening ripples on Twelve's back seemed to grin at him mockingly.

He took an unsteady breath, felt the tears on the way, and took another to stifle it, choked back a shrill sob, but too late, _too late-_

Nine bowed his head over his fallen friend and screamed, _screamed, _the tears overflowing. He poured his heart out, his voice scraping his throat raw, the happy days gone, the illness shadowing him gone, screams overflowing with anguish and loss, regret, loss, death (_mistake_)_, _he screamed like a limb had been ripped off, as if his heart were breaking, _death_.

(_he could feel it, the organ inside him no longer pumping blood, but ripping, tearing apart; fragmenting. Twelve was part of him. He was part of Twelve. It was a mistake, this was a mistake, could you please turn back the clock? the writer of the world must've made a mistake, there is nothing else this could be but a mistake, this is wrong, this sunset now is not what was ordained, he had a life he would live and grow old, perhaps he'd take lisa and at their wedding they would remember me, and they would have children and he would tell him tales about when he and his best friend were superheroes, and that he'd met their mother through the most fortuitous of chances, and they'd get old together and he would be happy, not this, this is simply erratum, THIS WAS NOT HOW IT SHOULD END, bring him back bring him backBRING HIM BACK PLEASE GIVE HIM BACK TO ME)_

His breath hitched in his throat over another clot of sobs, his hands tightened on themselves, and he knew what he had to do. The corner of the detonator jabbed into the flesh of his palm, and he slowly, achingly slowly, rose to his feet. The world was starting to dance at the edges, flitting shades of light and shadow, and he was standing on the corner of life and death.

(_a half coherent collection of thoughts from a place no longer quite corporeal:_

_(didn't lisa say once, are you going to destroy the world? we have not: yet, when i look through a fading mirror, i see a boy, not a number, 9- dark hair, solemn countenance. and blue.)_

_(life so cold it burns away childhood. You were abandoned. no love, so only numbers. but!- cried out a small voice, but!- NO, lies, black sound, death)_

_(at that time it was colors, not numbers that defined them)_

_(the children of the institute, so intelligent it would kill them, were unable to communicate with each other. yet somehow a ray of light reached him, the blue boy. another boy touched by the hand of some great deity? saturated in colors? a connection, said the booming white voices.)_

_(perhaps turned the mind to splinters, a connection where there should have been none. a scintillating spectrum contacted blue breathing out the colors of the fabric of the world. a spectrum like ribbons, shapes, voices? you're not insane, said the blue light, then all blue, with none of the dead space of gray. gray, like black, and none. The Institute was white, worse death as well.) _

_(red, screaming? metal, cold, rusted, piercing the arms and legs of the crucified colors. Now close your eyes, it won't hurt! lying. lying oh-so-very much death)_

_(dead space: gray, and that is white and black. white draws away sustenance for- black is death. not only mine) _

_(blue:don't be stupid. and sunlight smiles? breathed color into the starched white of nowhere. and. yes, slate blue voice, and the pale yellow girl, they'll be illuminated in these colors. beacons.)_

_(are you going to destroy the world? and with this unwanted too sudden BLACK departure, death. their worlds have already been destroyed. the fault lies on?)_

_(black sound, black sound, blue and yellow, and blue, blueblueblue with the gray knocked away, screaming? is that about-?)_

_(there is blue, the sky is blue, and though the ground is near, i am enfolded in an embrace of blue until)_

_(silence)_

The helicopters, having done their smug duty, dipped lower, gained altitude, turned around again. A single bullet for all that armor, for all their preparation, a single bullet through the heart is what it took, and with them, twin reapers, it gave a singularly unique gift.

He was quickly turning to a cold lump of bleeding meat on the ground, heat fleeing him, but it was not Twelve. Twelve was a boy with messy brown hair, with dancing eyes that saw a world beyond his grasp, a boy with a little dip in his lip when he smiled, a boy who grew to the cusp of adulthood with him, and this thing here on the ground was not him. A mistake; life switched the laughing boy for a corpse.

Nine armed the detonator with a flick of his wrist, and Shibazaki, who'd been standing there unsure of what to do, jerked back to life - "Wait!" - and started to run. (_Sphinx has never killed before, surely he won't break that trend?)_

_(__Has his companion ever been dead before?)_

With dead eyes, Nine faced the snipers, thumb hovering over the switch. _Do it. I dare you. _

In the helicopters, thumbs tightened on triggers. Nine was directly in their sights-

Shibazaki appeared, hoarse from pent-up screams, and waved his hands in front of the boy. "Don't shoot! At least let me talk to him!" And the Americans, already disconcerted by the order to shoot when _lives were on the line,_ pulled back. A little.

Shibazaki turned, his entire body intent on the detonator. Nine's eyes were dark, and the boy seemed immovable. But just for a moment, there was the faintest quiver.

"Everything will come to light in court." The detective's voice was professional, and he marveled at how smooth it was. "What you put your lives on the line to do. That's what you want, isn't it?" He stared into those eyes (_were they black before?)_ and held his ground. Seconds passed, the tension only distantly interrupted by Lisa's gasping sobs next to the corpse that was not Twelve, and even more distantly by the sound of blades chopping the air.

Something snapped; he closed his eyes, feeling a dizzying swing of weakness, and tossed the detonator to Shibazaki, who caught it in one hand. _Not long now, is it? Ah, I should've told at least one person..._When he spoke, his voice was uneven, a little raw. "Then I guess I'll leave the rest to you."

He tried to smile, but the ringing was back, the hideous ringing, it heralded his headaches. Last time - it was brief, he ducked into the shadows of the institution and clamped his hands over his ears, but to no avail, no use, it felt like his temples had been boxed with sledgehammers, and he bit his tongue, desperate not to loose a single sound that could ruin the happy day.

The world flickered, fluttered, and he felt his consciousness slipping away. Shibazaki's face, mere feet away, devolved into a mass of shifting flesh-colored shadows. It hurt, it _hurt,_ and his breath came out in a sliding mess of choked sounds. And suddenly, it was gone, sucked upwards, but he was only alive (_barely alive)_ by a thread. There was an insistent force drawing at him, pulling him hand over hand. _Twelve?_ he thought irrationally._ An angel with a firm hold of my life, and he's taking away this pain so i can offer a few parting words-_

"Hey..." His eyes struggled to focus, pulling Shibazaki's worried face and wide eyes into some semblance of order. "Remember us..." His neck tilted back, and he couldn't muster the energy to pull it up. The sky swam in dazzling patterns. "Remember that we lived."

Lisa, voice blurry, calling for him through a haze.

And the ringing was back, stronger than ever, but no pain, painless, _thank you twelve_, the remaining corona of warm light suddenly giving way to the approaching blue of night. There was a sense of impact, and two black birds and a white one, perhaps, their outlines so indistinct, and the ringing became all-pervasive, cutting across the senses, and there was white.

Not the white death of the institution, or the white of a burnt-out life, but true white.

Like winter's snow, it covered everything.


End file.
